Memoirs
by iloveanyonebutu
Summary: Every great General will, at some point want to tell the story of his life. Cross Marian, as unique as he is, is no different. Reposting because FF dot net has deleted my last one, or something.


**Memoirs**

_**Disclaimer: **__If I could own Cross Marian I would. Since I don't he isn't mine and neither is anything connected to -man._

_**Warnings:**__ Will have mentions of child abuse and rape in future chapters. If that's not your ball game don't read on, but you're pretty safe with this one. Smoking, drinking and sex will be abundant – but this is Cross we're talking about; that's practically all the man does._

_**A.N.:**__ This is my first fic, in my second language, so there are bound to be errors; if you spot any could you please tell me? Because it will definitely help me improve!_

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**Chapter 1: Leaving Home.**

'Once upon a time...' he said, because for him any other beginning would be inconceivable; the man who kills monsters for a living and can disappear in the blink of an eye; the man who nobody can catch, who is so wrapped in legends and myths that he has become one himself; 'Once upon a time, I was born.'

'After all, all things are born one way or another, even Akuma start their existence from a certain point and I, as remarkable as I am, am no different.

I suppose I should tell you my roots; the very start of my life, before I was anyone but a boy with the nickname Mari who liked climbing trees and catching bugs, and laughing. Our family was always laughing. My father was a farmer and my mother helped him the fields when she could, but my siblings and me took up most of her attention. We never had everything we wanted, but we had anything we needed and enough love to smother the world and that was all we could ask for – we were happy.

It is an inevitable truth, however that all good things must come to an end, and since my mother was the best out of all of us – the glue of our family and centre of our world, she died first. It was an infection in a small cut on her calf that killed her. By the time we realised what was happening it was already too late despite my father's assurances and the desperate race to the next village for the medicine that could have saved her; she left us, _me_, alone on my birthday. I have hated celebrating it ever since. In her mind, I suppose she wanted to hold on, to see me that one year older, to wish me luck – and, if I'm honest, I hate her for it.'

The red haired man paused to flick ash from his cigarette. In the corner a clock ticked the passing of time.

'We grieved for a long time, unwilling to let go of her memory. To continue living without her. My father drowned in guilt and remorse; he hadn't made it back with the medicine quickly enough to stop the spread of the infection, and whilst nobody blamed him he slowly sank into a wallowing pit of despair. I think it was only the thought that without him his children, _her_ children, would starve that made him drag himself out of bed each morning. Life was unsurprisingly hard but my older sisters stepped up to the role so maybe we could have had it worse; sometimes it's hard to judge how much of a struggle your life is when you yourself are living it – that is the tragedy of human nature; it's easier to be sad than happy; wanting than content; to cry than to laugh.

As the baby of the family I was spoilt even when there was almost nothing to spare. I had the best cuts of meat after my father and even the occasional toy that my brothers' whittled out of stolen firewood, I mourned the loss of my mother of course, but somehow the sting was taken out of it for me. Maybe I was too young to truly appreciate what death meant.

Over time, the pain of her loss faded to a dull ache, and when I was eight my father had decided that we needed a female influence in our lives; especially as my sisters were almost in their late teens and could be getting proposals (in fact my older sister had turned down two suitors to stay and take care of our family). I inherited my father's looks so you can imagine that he didn't have to spend long in the search for a wife – he was the most eligible bachelor in our village – and the village women had long been waiting for him to start courting again.

He explained his decision to us children; "I'll always love your mother, but I'm doing this as much for you as I am for me, you know!" I hated the idea, but for the first time for years my father looked both happy and motivated so I pretended to be happy, I'm very good at smiling (sometimes I think Allen learnt more from me than just how to fight Akuma). In retrospect that was probably the point where my life took a turn for the worst; deeper and darker - clouds on the horizon. Still, hindsight is a useless tool, and I try not to indulge in it; after all you can't change the past (it's a shame that it can't be said that the past can't change you).'

He irritably stubbed out his cigarette and immediately lit a new one. Dragging a hand over his face he sighed.

'It's hard not to hate him, to hate them both, you know?

Anyway, it didn't take him long to find a new wife, her name was... well, I'm not sure I should name her. She doesn't deserve the honour. Also as far as I know she's still alive and revenge is mine to take, I have claimed that right and I would hate anyone to take it away from me, because I want to see her _suffer_.

It was obvious that they didn't suit each other, but as before I bit my tongue and looked happy; through the marriage ceremony (which was beautiful) and the honeymoon period which didn't last long since my father had committed the fairly large oversight of forgetting to check whether his new wife liked children. She didn't. Apparently she thought that she could 'get used' to us – this didn't happen and we despised her almost as much as she despised us.

We struggled for money; something which had never happened before; she refused to work and frittered my father's earnings away on trinkets, ribbons and anything that she thought would improve her looks. The days that we went without food became more and more frequent, and when we complained she would hit us to 'shut up the damned brats'. I often set up little traps and pranks that would irritate and sometimes hurt her and so she reserved a special sort of vengeance for me. I suppose it was only fair that she retaliated but then it seemed like a grave injustice; no child deserves to be hurt by somebody who is supposed to care for them and whilst I may have been annoying (a trait I'm told I haven't lost as I have gotten older), her ultimate revenge surpassed anything that I could have dreamt up in the darkest of nightmares.

Soon came the time when we were missing meals every other day instead of once every week; my father looked on with sadness but couldn't bring himself to try to rein in his wife's spending and with so many mouths to feed we were slowly starving to death. When I say we, of course I mean us children, the adults always had enough. _She_ made sure of that, explaining away our absence from the dinner table as punishment for being badly behaved during the day.

Do you know, ever since then I like food almost as much as Allen? I know I can have it whenever and wherever I want, but every meal is still as wonderful as the first time I ate my fill afterwards. Although that isn't for a long time yet; if I am to tell you the truth of my life, I shouldn't sugar coat the truth, nor pass over events that I would like to forget; so a lot of things occurred before I got the chance to truly enjoy a meal.

When even people who didn't know us started to mutter about our half-starved appearance, it was clear that something needed to be done; my older brothers volunteered to travel in the search of work, but my father would not let them, saying that they needed all the hands they could get around the house and to help on the fields. Unbeknownst to me however, my step-mother (she never deserved that title) was plotting a way to both dispose of me and bring more money into the family. She lied to my father about what it entailed because he would never have let me go had he known; but he didn't and so I left.'

He turned and watched his reflection in the window; outside it was raining and briefly he wondered if it was possible that the weather was listening to his story too... _If it's raining now, _he thought, _then I'll be expecting a thunderstorm soon._ The look on his face was wry, but nevertheless mildly amused.

'What my father though had happened was that the neighbourhood priest took me to the nearest orphanage where I would be quickly adopted into a new family, because I was a cute child who was moderately well behaved. The reality was different, as it tends to be; I had been sold to a man who specialised in the trade of children. It's a big market you know. Bigger than most people imagine, although of course most people try not to think about such things – it's a society taboo. I found out later that I had cost the grand total of £3o; which was slightly less than the cost of a cow in our part of the world. I found it... humiliating that I didn't even exceed the price of a _cow_. I valued myself somewhat more highly than that.

I was bid tearful goodbyes by my brothers and sisters who made me promise that I would write to them and they would be glad to come and collect me, or steal me away should the need arise. Of course they never did, because I never had the opportunity to write in those first few months, and afterwards... well, let's just say I lost the desire to write or indeed to see them again.

My father was the last to bid me goodbye, and he secretly slipped a couple of coins into my pocket, "just in case". I wished that he would stop the 'priest' from taking me away, but he didn't and as we approached a bend in the road I glanced back to see my father laughing at something his wife had said. That was the last time I saw him, with his hair catching the sunlight and laughter glinting in his eyes. He apparently died two months later from a (rather suspicious) case of food poisoning. My step mother got remarried soon after to a Lord who could provide her with all the trinkets she could possibly want.

I'm not really sure how to start this next part of the story; because it is important, and because I don't want to tell it.

The man who was leading me away from my life was handsome in a dark, cruel sort of way; imagine Tykki Mikk and Leverrier's child and you would have a rough approximation. The first thing he told me, my new carer, mentor, _owner _was;

"Do what I tell you, whelp, and maybe you'll still be conscious at the end of what I'm planning, got it?" I managed to nod and tried to wriggle my hand out of his grasp, and was rewarded with a sharp slap for my efforts. I think it was at that point that I finally understood that what I was told was going to happen in my future and what the reality was apparently going to be, were diverging into two vastly different directions. And so I cringed and kept silent, because they were playing by rules I hadn't yet learnt and because I had for the first time in my life discovered what survival instinct was.'

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_**A.N.2: **__In the next chapter; Cross finds his God-Given Innocence 'Judgement' and loses an innocence that's far more important. _

_Please review; I will treasure each and every one; especially since they'll be my first reviews!_


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